Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kate Green and Russell Brown

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

4. What the reason is for the time taken to produce the Government’s sexual health policy document; and when he now expects it to be published.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

11. What the reason is for the time taken to produce the Government’s sexual health policy document.

Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Kate Green and Russell Brown

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brown]

We are taking one vote, and the Minister knows that.

[Kate Green]

Is not the problem that there is a single order dealing with the uprating of a whole range of benefits, including disability living allowance, which is going up by more than 1%, and other working-age benefits that are limited to only 1%? The problem is that a single order is dealing with a combination of benefits within it.

[Mr Brown]

Exactly, and that is the difficulty we face this evening.

I have raised the point about the 1% freeze on benefits before. I have asked Ministers in both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury what kind of impact assessment has been done and what consultation there has been between the two sets of Ministers, but I have never had a straight answer. What we will be witnessing over the three-year period, according to the Government’s figures, is almost £6 billion being saved or, as I would put it, £6 billion being taken away from the lowest income households. The Minister must surely know that that £6 billion would have been spent in the local economy.

When I first arrived in this House, in 1997, the then Labour Government decided to introduce a national minimum wage, which effectively put money into people’s pockets. The impact assessment at the time was based on £1 million being given to the poorest households, which clearly would then be spent in the local economy. For every £1 million spent in the local economy, 40 jobs were created.

If the Minister is able to do his work—I think that he is an intelligent man—he will see that taking £6 billion out of local economies over three years will have a detrimental impact. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) is telling me that yet another high street outlet is on the brink this evening, so more jobs might go.